Adaptational Wimp / Western Animation

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• Adventure Time has a weird example in its Gender Flip episode "Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake". In the "real" setting Princess Bubblegum is a Pretty Princess Powerhouse and Science Hero with a huge Cute and Psycho streak, while in "Fionna and Cake" Prince Gumball is a Distressed Dude whose major passions are balls and baking. Entirely intentional, given that the episode is a fanfiction by Ice King.
• Done intentionally and Played for Laughs in one Classical Mythology-inspired episode of Animaniacs. Heracles, despite his great strength, is portrayed as a crybaby who throws a childish tantrum because he doesn't want to do the Twelve Labors that his "mean old dad Zeus", as he puts it, told him to do. (Of course, that alone means the writers took serious liberties.)
• In most continuities involving Batman, including the comic books and Batman: The Animated Series, Rupert Thorne is a powerful and ruthless mobster who controls the Gotham underworld with an iron fist. However, in The Batman he was a Dirty Coward who Batman took all of five minutes to apprehend in the series pilot; he only appeared afterwards in a couple of cameos. However, The Batman's tie-in comics did try to establish him as a consistent player in Gotham's underworld, even taking advantage of local supervillains to further his own ends.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold:
  • In the comics, Mongul is slightly stronger and tougher than Superman, meaning Superman has to really push himself and pull out all the stops to beat him. Here, Batman is able to take him on in hand to hand combat and knock him out.
  • In the comics, Shaggy Man is insanely strong and even more indestructible than Doomsday. It usually takes the entire Justice League to survive long enough to find some way to temporarily get rid of him. Here, Batman takes out five Shaggy Men with one punch each.
  • In the comics, Captain Marvel is roughly as strong as Superman and even more invulnerable than him. In "Night of the Batmen", he struggles when fighting Blockbuster and Bane and cries out in pain when they hit him and Joker knocks him out cold with a bazooka.
• Although it's not helped by the different direction taken by the storyline, Waspinator and Terrorsaur both got hit with this hard in Beast Wars. Waspinator in the toyline was The Dreaded and a Cold Sniper, whilst Terrorsaur was a rampaging berserker warrior. Both also got transmetal forms that were even more lethal. In the series? Waspinator is the Butt-Monkey and Terrorsaur is The Starscream. Fortunately this didn't hurt Waspinator at all, and he's a fan-favourite. And while Terrorsaur was mediocre as a straight up warrior, he could still be considered dangerous if nothing else than for his willingness to shoot Maximals in the back when they're most vulnerable.
• In the Black Panther (2010) cartoon, every non-Wakandan character is either evil, stupid, or both. The X-Men (aside from Storm) take it pretty bad but by far the worst victim is the Juggernaut, who is depicted as being quite a good deal dumber than usual, at one point being described by the other characters as basically brainless. In the original comic story his role belonged to the Rhino, who generally is considered to be that dumb.
• Blood of Zeus does this to Apollo and Artemis from Classical Mythology. Apollo easily one of the most badass Gods who has defeated all sorts of monsters, stood up to his father Zeus, clobbered his brother Ares in a boxing match and survived a stint in Tartarus, in the show Apollo gets effortlessly overpowered by Ares (who’s gotten Adaptational Badass) twice and nearly dies in the latter fight. Artemis gets Demoted to Extra and contributes the least in the Final Battle, unlike the Myths where she’s one of the most skilled Godesses alongside Athena (who is Adapted Out).
• Captain N: The Game Master:
  • Granted, around 1990 the Castlevania games hadn't given Simon Belmont much in the way of character development, pretty much a Badass Normal who defeated Dracula twice using only a (at that point, not all that special) whip. In the TV series, he was reduced to The Drag-Along. It's hard to believe the bumbling, narcissistic Simon of the TV series could possibly have gone up against someone as threatening as Dracula and even survived, much less triumphed.
  • Dracula, too. The existence-threatening Big Bad of the series got turned into a dork in a banana-yellow tux who could be stopped just by winding him up like a top and spinning him back into his coffin.
    • Also Alucard; the legendary and powerful Dhampyr from the games is turned into a skater punk who exists to annoy his father Dracula with his antics.
  • This also applies on some level with Mega Man and Kid Icarus. Mega Man does have plenty of strength, but it's still quite a step down from having an arm that turns into a gun and the powers of the Robot Masters he defeats. Kid Icarus' has the marksmanship of Pit's trademark arrows reduced to comical proportions, and on occasions where they do hit something, they do things like giving wolves balloons instead of winning fights.
  • The villains got hit with absolutely astonishing Villain Decay as well as this trope. In Punch-Out!!, King Hippo was one of the harder boxers in the game but was easy to beat once one learned the strategy; his usefulness in the cartoon was hampered by strict censorship involving throwing punches. Eggplant Wizard goes from being a rather difficult enemy that can turn the player into a vegetable to merely making jokes about the subject and displaying no sorcery prowess whatsoever. The biggest victim had to be Mother Brain, going from the all-powerful Big Bad of her game to an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain that never truly got the better of Kevin and the other denizens of the Palace of Power.
• Castlevania:
  • Hector is the most notable example. In his debut game, Hector was former minion of Dracula skilled various weapons and Summon Magic. His story saw him going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after his wife is killed and successfully defeating his fellow Forgemaster Isaac, Death and even Dracula himself. In the Netflix show, Hector while still a Forgemaster, is pretty much a Non-Action Guy who is easily bullied and manipulated by Carmilla and Lenore and is beaten with laughable ease any time he tries to fight back. Ironically, Isaac's combat prowess and abilities largely stayed the same from the game (if not more impressive) in juxtaposition to Hector, despite Isaac's character getting a major overhaul. Averted in Season 4 which has Hector break free of his imprisonment and help take down Carmilla, though he still shows none of the combat skill he possesses in the game.
  • Downplayed with Saint Germain, another character from Curse of Darkness. Besides being a mysterious time traveler, Germain is a skilled fighter who wields a cutlass and flintlock, and effectively fights Hector and even Zead who is Death in disguise. In the show, Germain is more of a Guile Hero who avoids violence and needs Trevor and Sypha to do all the heavy lifting for him in The Final Battle. Though Germain does jump onto the Visitor (a giant super demon head)'s head and causally call Dracula a "leech" which is quite awesome in it's own right.
  • A lot of the monsters such as Gaibon, Slogra, Werewolves and Malphas who were challenging bosses and enemies in the games, are complete pushovers in the Netflix show. Trevor even kills a few of them with just a sharpened stick and even his bare hands instead of his holy whip.
  • The monster who gets hit the hardest with this is Legion. In the games it's a very challenging massive living ball of human bodies which the heroes have to break apart piece by piece, while the bodies that drop from it become enemies as well. In the show Legion is less terrifying just being a whole bunch of floating people possessed by a Evil Sorcerer and shaped into a sphere, and once Isaac kills the sorcerer Legion collapses.
  • Played with in regards to Death. In the games he is The Grim Reaper himself, while in the show Trevor explains he's an elemental spirit who "feeds on death" like a vampire, rather than being the personified Death itself. Averted with everything else about him though as this version of Death is far more powerful than the version in the games (who got his ass beat regularly), being a greater and more powerful evil than even Dracula and whom Trevor is forced to use a Godzilla Threshold to defeat and would've died if not for Saint Germain's help.
• Curbside does this with its interpretation of the Terrytoons character Tom Terrific, changing him from a brave shape-shifter to an ordinary boy who needs help from Mighty Mouse when he finds himself at the mercy of a criminal called the Creeper.
• In the Darkstalkers cartoon Pyron is turned into a completely incompetent villain, especially compared with his video game counterpart. In the ninth episode of the series, he even has to be saved from Huitzil. However, this can also be argued for all the main cast as they were In Name Only characters.
• The DC Animated Universe tends to operate on a far smaller scale the the comic books it is based on. While the most conservative comic book writers have to "limitted" Superman to a megaton at most for most of his publication history, this Superman is unsure if he can survive explosions ranging in the kilotons. Everything else scales downward from there, and there are still some standout examples even taking that into account.
  • Batman: The Animated Series
    • Hugo Strange is far less menacing and dark compared to his other incarnations, only being a threat through blackmail.
    • Bane suffers from this trope to a lesser extent. While Bane is still a clever and decent combatant, he's not that much of a threat without the Super Serum. He even loses his first fight with Batman, with his backbreaker move not working on him — though to be fair, in the comics, he destroyed Arkham to release its inmates to run an already tired Batman ragged, whereas in the show, he fought a well-rested Batman.
  • Justice League:
    • In the first season, the writers had Superman succumb to The Worf Effect quite often, inadvertently making him look like one of the weaker Leaguers. They eventually noticed and corrected it in the second and Unlimited seasons, leading to him making a "No More Holding Back" Speech.
    • Similarly, Green Lantern's ring was used in a much more limited fashion in the first season. Eventually, this changes as well with the writers lampshading the matter by having his fellow Lantern Katma Tui lecture him on his unimaginative use of the ring.
    • Wonder Woman very belatedly got her armor’s full power unlocked, finally bringing her up to par with her comic book counterpart.
    • Martian Manhunter, in the first season, is the one who gets the most beatings than everyone else, and usually gets knocked out more often, while almost never getting to show off his strength or psychic abilities.
    • The Flash, in the first season, pretty much serves as a distraction for the villain of the week until he inevitably trips over something and lands flat on his face. Fast-forward to the end of the fourth season, when he takes down Luthor/Brainiac single-handed!
    • Several villains also got this treatment. The Key went from a man with a god complex and mind control abilities to a thief and escape artist, the Cadre and Extremists (whom can knock the League on their asses, including Power Girl and Captain Atom) were portrayed in a similar vein to many villains in the Ultimate Spider-Man example (rather easy for a very small group of Leaguers to defeat), and Supergirl scoffed at fighting Dr. Cyber (one of Wonder Woman's foes) and Queen Bee (who nearly killed Big Barda). Tala went from an evil goddess in the comics to simply being an Evil Sorcerer (who is also an operative of Cadmus) easily tricked by Felix Faust, as well as being Gorilla Grodd's (later Lex Luthor's, though eventually back to being with Grodd) girlfriend. Despero went from being able to beat up Superman and Captain Marvel at the same time in the comics to Green Lantern being able to take him on in hand to hand combat. This overlaps with Popularity Power, as most of these villains are pretty obscure and have gone through a fair amount of Villain Decay in the comics.
    • Doomsday doesn't kill Superman in either of his appearances. The Justice Lords defeat him in his debut in "A Better World" with Lord!Superman lobotomizing him and he still loses to the normal Superman in "The Doomsday Sanction". The fact that his origin was changed from being an ancient Kryptonian to Superman's clone helped. On the otherhand Doomsday doesn't die in either of his appearances either.
    • Even though he was a Flat Character in the comics at the time, Sinestro still got hit with this, going from the Galactic Conqueror of the comics, to a wannabe Hero Killer (having killed Abin Sur) in Superman: The Animated Series, a hired thug in Justice League when he was a founding member of Grodd's Secret Society of Super Villains, and content to frame John Stewart in Static Shock.
• DC Super Hero Girls (2019) is a high school parody first, super hero parody second, and the scale of the episodes tend to be much lower than the comic books they're based on as a consequence. A few characters deserve their own entries, however.
  • Wonder Woman has fewer wonderful powers and has far greater limits to them compared to the overwhelming majority of the character's publication history. Her Super-Strength in the comics was stated the be equal to Hercules from her first appearance, increased to stronger than the legendary figure, and has since been described as equal to Demeter, Gaea etc. The show has plenty of jokes about Diana's absurd feats but Supergirl is by far the stronger between them and Wonder Woman's unarmed strikes cannot even hurt Giganta. Wonder Woman has matched and subdued these two several times in the comics. In her first comic Wonder Woman's speed was said to be equal to the messenger god Hermes, increased to faster than such and she pulled off faster than light reactions while learning to fight Badra in Comic Cavalcade #25. Here Diana is still fast, in particular being able to block attacks from The Flash in the dark, but her running speed is directly compared to a motor vehicle, putting her in the slower half of the team when it comes to traveling. Her language skills and animal empathy are also significantly downplayed, the former for the sake of jokes as she fails to navigate modern cities, the latter so she can struggle to control a completely loyal but highly destructive griffon. She seems to lack The Sisterhood With Fire, definitely lacks the psychic defenses of her Golden Age and Post Crisis self, lacks the air gliding and Vacuum Mouth of her Silver Age counterpart, and the flight displayed in Post Crisis, New 52 and DC Rebirth is definitely gone. This Wonder Woman also has no invisible robot plane or jet. On the other hand this show's Wonder Woman seems to have a nerfed version of Artemsis's Summon to Hand trick, something comic book Diana never had any form of, and her short comings are mostly justified by this Wonder Woman having a teenager's body that will become more powerful as she continues to develop.
  • Zatanna openly admits to being unable to perform spells her comic book counterpart would be doing without issue, and severely struggles with her own Black Magic, even more so with black magic used by her opponents. This one is justified by this version of Zee Zatara still being a student who hasn't even begun to reach her full potential, likes to put off her studies and has no black magic instructor due to her mother leaving the family.
  • Giganta can't grow nearly as large as her then most recent comic book counterpart from DC Rebirth, nor her Post Crisis self, for that matter, and is subsequently nowhere near as strong or tough as them either. However, Giganta is downgraded far less than Wonder Woman is, to the point she's now Wonder Woman's equal in running speed and overall strength while being superior in striking despite having a sloppy, telegraphed punch. In fact Giganta now far surpasses Wonder Woman and Supergirl in overall toughness to the point of beating both, one after the other, by sheer endurance during her first appearance!
  • Subverted with Giovanni Zatara, who is not a super hero on this show despite being one of DC's first alongside Superman and predating Batman. It turns out the circumstances of Giovanni's life, being an inept stage magician who was trying to go without using any real magic due to having his daughter and breaking up with his wife much earlier in his life, then finding a lucrative, permanent gig at a fixed location, prevented him from becoming the globe traveling crime solver of the comic books. Giovanni is nonetheless just as powerful, relative to the other characters in the show, when he does start casting spells. Giovanni's stumped on the subject of black magic, having none of it himself, unlike Zee and his unnamed ex wife, but is otherwise far more competent than Zee is and the one most responsible for her current phase of training.
  • Even without his super powers, even out of his element on dry land, comic book Aqualad is a tall, muscled athlete who can easily overpower and outmaneuver the average man. While Garth's powers are impressive as ever in the water here, on the land Garth is a Tiny School Boy who is regularly stuffed in lockers and is utterly helpless against Toyman. Justified, as Garth has not hit his growth spurt yet.
  • Poison Ivy is neither poisonous nor does she have any inherent venom here, getting her name from a poisonous plant her father created. This Poison Ivy also lacks her comic book counterpart's ability to charm people with pheromones, and has a sickly teenage body when not using the full extent of her powers. However, this Poison Ivy's powers extend beyond plants, being able to animate even dead fungi, as long as it's green, and affect protists, including protozoa, as long as they're green, at one point enlarging and toughening singled celled pond scum enough to threaten Supergirl and Green Lantern at once.
  • This show uses Dick Grayson as its Robin. While Robin still has his gadgets and some of combat skill, he displays none of the trademark Grayson agility or acrobatics, and no awareness of his surroundings whatsoever, making him incredibly easy for Harley Quinn to kill if not for Batgirl saving him. He also displays none of Dick Grayson's bravery, folding to Harley when threatened directly.
  • In the comic books The Royal Flush Gang defeated The Justice League in their first appearance and The League had to research The Gang's then unique form of magic before they could begin to fight back against The Gang. In this show The Royal Flush Gang are a mere Gang of Hats who flee from mere police officers and aren't even on The Super Hero Girls' radar until Diana's aunt Antiope gets the group in trouble for gambling with The Gang.
  • Comic book Shaggy Man is able to defeat the entire Justice League in his first appearance, and while there are plenty of comic books that feature him losing to individual super heroes, these are invariably used to show how much more powerful, better equipped and or more skilled that particular superhero has become. This show's Shaggy Man exists to be featured in gags that end with him effortlessly beaten by Supergirl.
  • While some comic books portray Riddler as being even worse than The Joker, as long as we're being honest we might as well admit he usually ranges from middling threat to Harmless Villain in that he is mostly interested in showing off how clever he is and views his schemes as nothing more than games where no one is supposed to get hurt. Riddler's two sidekicks\bodyguard babes tend to be more bloodthirsty than he is, but even at his most sympathetic and least malicious comic book Riddler is still a man from a broken home who can survive on the streets of Gotham City and only falls short against expert fighters like Batman. this show's Riddler lacks any combat ability whatsoever and has a glass jaw to boot.
• DuckTales (2017): In the original show, Launchpad McQuack is one of the most dangerous members of the cast besides Scrooge himself. During the first season alone, he saves the triplets from hostile aliens, pulls off a supposedly impossible maneuver to rescue Scrooge during an aerial battle with the Beagle Boys, and successfully substitutes for a spy. The reboot version gets sidelined or becomes useless in a fight quite a bit more frequently, especially because he's also much ditzier.
• Lolth herself — as in, the dreaded spider-goddess of the drow — appeared in the cartoon version of Dungeons & Dragons (1983), where she seemed to be an ally of Venger; she first appeared as a beautiful elven maiden, who lured the heroes into a dark cavern, at which point she quickly assumed her true, demonic form and dumped them into a subterranean web. Venger appeared briefly to gloat, and then left her to deal with them, but she proved far weaker than she was in any other setting, defeated rather easily after the heroes managed to sever a web and causing her to plummet helplessly into the abyss below.
• Anti-Monitor in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Oh, make no mistake, he still drained a universe and destroyed superweapons left and right. However, his comic book self could tank having War World dropped on him, fighting The Spectre, and take an entire Crisis Crossover to defeat on multiple occasions. And during the show's run, before his more powerful brother Alpheus and mother Perpetua were introduced in the comics later on, he was considered to be the strongest villain in DC outside of The Great Evil Beast and Lucifer...if one counted them as villains. Here? It's not even the combined Red and Green Lantern armada that beats him. It's Aya... the weakest member of the team... by herself, though for the sake of fairness, the series changed Anti-Monitor from a creature made of anti-matter into a Giant Mecha, and Aya is the galaxy's most advanced A.I.
• Harley Quinn (2019):
  • Clayface and King Shark are two extremely formidable villains in the comics, and even though Clayface is usually a Batman villain, the Dark Knight himself has admitted that he can't take Basil in a physical fight and has to resort to trickery to defeat him. This trope is arguably justified not by their prowess or lack thereof, but their personalities. King is very timid, and the one time he cut loose (after smelling Robin's blood), it was one of the most genuinely harrowing moments in the otherwise-comedic series. And Clayface is not only timid but also extremely stupid; even in-universe he often has to be reminded by other characters that his unique powers can get them out of their jam.
  • The Queen of Fables is an Evil Sorceress who has taken on the entire Justice League in the comics, and she can draw power from any source of creativity. Here, her magic is limited to bringing fairy tale beings to life from her book and is effectively powerless without it, and while she does use it to horrifying effect, she's unceremoniously killed by Harley taking her head off with her baseball bat.
  • Robin/Damian Wayne is never treated as a physical threat despite his boast of being trained by assassins indicating that he should be. Harley leaves him hanging from a hook by his belt in their first encounter, and effortlessly finds and kidnaps him when she needs to later in the episode. To be fair, he is a 12-year-old kid, and all the ninjutsu in the world can't compensate for body mass. He also randomly gets nosebleeds and his voice cracks when he tries to sound tough.
  • Subverted by Bane. Usually he's treated as the Butt-Monkey of the Gotham villains, but while he's not nearly as intelligent as his comic book counterpart, the episode "Batman's Back, Man" shows that he is still a legitimate threat, especially when he's dosed up on Venom.
  • Like Robin, Nightwing and Batgirl are depicted as largely useless without their weapons despite years of martial arts training, Harley has to teach them how to fight without them.
• All the main characters in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. suffer from this trope significantly. In the first episode, Hulk is worried that A-Bomb is at risk of being killed by a lava flow (he's fine, but Hulk still acts like lava is something capable of threatening a Hulk), and in many episodes they get beaten down or captured by enemies who in the comic books are nowhere near the power level needed to do more than annoy Hulk.
• Mark, the titular hero of Invincible (2021) is the son of the local Superman Substitute and chose the name to reflect his resulting superhuman durability. However, in the show, he's much more vulnerable to enemy attacks than his comic counterpart, with it even being lampshaded at times.

  Allen: I'm Allen, by the way.

  Mark: Invincible.

  Allen: [chuckling] Oh yeah? A little optimistic, isn't it?

  • The show also switches around Mark and his Love Interest Atom Eve’s badassery, in the comics he’s much more powerful than her and often needs to save her life from super strong villains. In the show Eve gets Adaptational Badass saving Mark’s bacon repeatedly with her powers and generally being a more competent superhero than him.
  • Mark's father Omni-Man is still a veritable powerhouse, but the show makes him a little less overwhelming as his murder of the other Guardians of the Globe lands him in the hospital instead of it being the seconds-long Curb-Stomp Battle it was in the comic.
• Captain Hook, Memetic Badass and much-loved villain of Peter Pan comes back to menace the kid heroes of the Dora-esque show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, missing about half his brain cells and with a somewhat off-putting redesign. Granted, Hook has always had trouble defeating children, but in this case it is particularly glaring.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Two cartoons ("Drip-Along Daffy" and "My Little Duckaroo") featured a villain called Nasty Kanasta, who was as Nasty as his name implied. (The second cartoon was even a case of The Bad Guy Wins. Poor Daffy.) However, in the later cartoon "Barbary Coast Bunny" featured a different version of Nasty Canasta, who was an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain, more of a Con Man than the earlier gun-slinging bad guy, easily outwitted and outsmarted by Bugs. (And not even voiced by Mel Blanc, but by Daws Bulter.) Fortunately, Canasta was back to his old, nastier self when he appeared in Duck Dodgers, in an episode aptly titled "The Wrath of Canasta".
  • In The Looney Tunes Show Bugs Bunny himself gets a lot of this. In the original cartoons Bugs is a Invincible Hero, effortlessly foiling the schemes Elma Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian and Willie.E Coyote with barely any effort and is always upstaging his partner Daffy Duck. In the 2011 show however, Bugs is often depicted as the Straight Man to Daffy and his girlfriend Lola Bunny and frequently gets roped into their antics and is powerless to stop them. Averted in “Customer Service” where unfortunately for Cecil Turtle, Bugs is depicted as the unstoppable Karmic Trickster that he is in the classic cartoons.
• Masters of the Universe: Revelation:
  • Moss Man, despite making an impressive entrance is reduced to ashes by Skeletor in a few seconds. This contrasts to his last appearance in the 2002 cartoon where he had a Story-Breaker Power.
  • In He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983), it was established that Inept Mage Orko was actually a powerful sorcerer in his native dimension of Trolla... but Eternia and Trolla run on different magical principles, leaving him cursed with Wild Magic when in Eternia. This idea was absorbed into subsequent Masters of the Universe media... until Relevation, which instead depicted Orko as having always been a magically inept bumbler, albeit one who was largely suffering from psychosomatic sabotage due to his lack of confidence and self-esteem.
  • Stinkor was one of Skeletor's most efficient warriors in the 2002 cartoon, thanks to how potent his stench was (able to drive enemies and even the most dangerous wild beasts away from him and also knock enemies unconscious) and being able to direct where it went. This Stinkor's stench is strong yet bearable, and at most he uses it as a smokescreen; Teela manages to beat him with little to no effort.
• Cartoons based off Mega Man (Classic):
  • The Ruby Spears Mega Man cartoon does this to the Robot Masters, reducing them to, for the most part, glorified Mooks with names, with only Proto Man, turned into Mega Man's Evil Counterpart in the series, being depicted as a threat. The other exception is Pharaoh Man, who’s much more badass than his game counterpart.
  • While the Robot Masters are a bit more threatening in Mega Man: Fully Charged, Mega Man himself gets hit with this. In the games he doesn’t seem to have a limit to how many powers he can copy. Here? He can only copy three, and is thus forced to discard certain powers until the next time he fights a certain Robot Master.
    • Further, rather than copy the powers of a Robot Master upon defeating them, he must instead use a beam to replicate their powers, typically in the middle of a fight, which often leaves him open to attack. As a final kink, he also gets a bit of the Robot Master's personality when using their powers, which can lead to trouble.
• Lava Lord, from Mighty Max. In the original toyline Lava Lord is a dangerous villain who is more than capable of fighting on his own thanks to his Fireforce Sword, which can control fire and heat. In the cartoon he relies 100% on his Humongous Mecha, Magus, and seems to be pretty much useless without it.
• My Adventures with Superman:
  • Like in most adaptations, the titular character gets hit with this. Here, he takes visible damage and gets nearly overwhelmed by a giant robot that his comic counterpart would have no problem taking down. He's also visibly exhausted after defeating the robot and the rest of the robots coming at him all at once are portrayed as potentially being capable of killing him. That said, along with the fact that he's younger and a less experienced fighter in this series, it's heavily implied that Clark is subconsciously holding back his full power; once he sees that one of the robots might kill Lois, he gets a sudden boost in power, heals from his injuries, and sends the robot flying with a single Megaton Punch.
  • This shows version of Livewire zig-zags this trope. On one hand, this version of Leslie lacks the natural Shock and Awe powers of either her comic version or the version from the previous animated series that she originates from, instead getting her abilities from Powered Armor. While she does eventually develop natural electric powers, said powers are far more limited compared to what her previous counterparts are capable of. On the other hand, this version of Leslie is also far more skilled in physical combat than her usual portrayal, as seen when she manages to fight on even ground with Slade even before bringing out the armor, and later manages to curb-stomp him when the two fight again after she's developed her natural powers.
  • The Intergang as a whole gets hit with this. In the comics, Intergang is a dangerous and large-scale syndicate of criminals and terrorists armed with high-tech weaponry supplied to them by Darkseid himself. Here, Intergang is a three-person group of small time criminals who aren't particularly competent at all. On top of that, two of the three members of the gang in this series have also been hit with this trope.
    • In the comics, Silver Banshee has mystical powers that grant her a sonic scream, super strength, and flight. Here, she only has the sonic scream, and said scream comes from an advanced tech mask rather than being a natural ability of hers. While she does eventually gain her flight power, like with the sonic scream, the ability comes from advanced tech rather than being natural.
    • The Golden Age version of Mist is a criminal mastermind whose exposure to a chemical grants him the ability to transform into vapor, giving him Invisibility and Intangibility. His counterpart in this show, meanwhile, is just a small scale criminal who only has the invisibility, which is instead given to him via advanced tech.
  • Mr. Mxyzptlk's appearance in this show is a downplayed case of this. In the comics, Mr. Mxy is a near all-powerful Reality Warper capable of using his powers without any restriction. In this show, Mr. Mxy is still fairly powerful, but he's normally restricted in what he can do and needs to be wearing his bowler hat/tiara in order to access the full capabilities of his godlike powers.
• The Auryn in The Neverending Story: The Animated Adventures of Bastian Balthazar Bux. Whilst it does grant Bastian some magical protections, such as shielding him from the flames of Grograman, it does not make him invulnerable. Nor does it have the Reality Warper powers of its literary counterpart.
• In the game Pac-Man Blinky was portrayed as the leader and the aggressive one, being the main chaser in the group. When the game got an animated show, the leader role was given to Clyde. As a result, Blinky became the coward and worry-wart of the group. Compared to the other ghosts, Blinky usually had a nervous look on his face and sometimes was scared of Pac-Man when he didn't even have a power pellet.
• Silver Surfer: The Animated Series sees the Champion, a member of the Elders of the Universe and a near Physical God, as a lowly member of Nebula's crew of space pirates.
• Tails in the earlier Sonic the Hedgehog games was a Gadgeteer Genius and Ace Pilot who was almost as fast and powerful as Sonic. In the TV adaptations, he's usually all but useless when it comes to fighting. The worst offender was Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) which, in order to give its original characters more screentime, changed Tails' role from Sonic's sidekick and main ally to a Bratty Half-Pint who was always made to stay home while the others fought Robotnik, and the few times he ventured outside he tended to play the role of Distressed Dude.
• Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends did this to Wolverine. In the Canucklehead's sole appearance on the cartoon, not only is he easily defeated by the Juggernaut, but his adamantium-coated claws, which can slice through anything, get him easily stuck in tiny brick wall, leaving him stuck for the rest of the fight.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series:
  • The Beyonder may not seem like this because of how powerful he still is, but that's because the comic version is so powerful that even if incredibly nerfed he is still more powerful than any other character. The comic version is revealed to be an entire alternate universe in human form. His powers can basically be summed up as "he decides reality will be a certain way, and so it is." The show Beyonder is, again, the most powerful character in the series, but his power can be exhausted with overuse, and when depleted, he was apparently in real physical danger from Man-Spider. Apparently he is comic-level powerful when in his own dimension, but again, comic Beyonder is his own dimension and is all-powerful wherever he is. While far from a Superfriends Aquaman level of suck, we at least go from standing alone at capital-G-God tier to coming down to... well, less.
  • The Hobgoblin is still a genuine threat, but lacks the Super Serum he uses in the comics and is thus simply a Badass Normal. He manages to be a major thorn in Spidey's side, but ends up thoroughly outclassed when the Green Goblin finally makes his debut, Psycho Serum and all.
  • In the comics, Doctor Octopus is up there with Green Goblin as one of Spidey's all-time greatest enemies and is feared and/or respected by much of New York's criminal element, with the Kingpin once preferring to relocate his entire operation rather than deal with him. Here he is a B-tier bad guy who doesn't make too many appearances, doesn't bring together the Sinister Six, and only acts as The Dragon for Kingpin..
• Super Friends:
  • Aquaman is an infamous example. While he has always been at his best around open water, he still has super strength and resilience even on land. The writers for Super Friends, apparently as an attempt at Cast Speciation (as all of his powers not related to water or sea life are already shared by Superman), downplayed all of his non-aquatic powers to the point of him being almost completely defenseless out of water. Because of this adaption, many will still think that "He's just some guy who swims fast and talks to fish".
  • In Challenge of the Superfriends The Scarecrow was one of the more useless members of the Legion of Doom, with his only shown ability being to summon crows which rarely did more than annoy the Superfriends. In the comics, however, he is usually written as a considerably more dangerous villain, being adept at physical combat (especially when armed with his scythe) in addition to his "fear gas", a hallucinogenic nerve gas that is enough to render most people a sobbing wreck with just one whiff. The last iteration of the show, The Super Powers Team, gave him back his fear gas, but played this trope on it too: instead of forcing people to hallucinate their darkest fears it instead made them temporarily afraid of whatever specific thing that particular batch of gas was made for, which he then still had to find a source of — so a "fear of spiders" gas bomb, for example, would still be useless unless Scarecrow had a few spiders handy. The end result? Scarecrow still wasn't up to par with his comics self.
    Lex Luthor: And Scarecrow, you're...you're...you're made of straw!
  • More generally, the "no punching" rules imposed by the Moral Guardians of the time ended up making many of the heroes and villains look unusually ineffective. Hawkman and Solomon Grundy were probably the hardest hit (pun fully intended) given that they were all about melee combat in the comics.
    Seanbaby: The cartoon's No Punching Rule was harder on Grundy than it was for the other villains. Most of them still had things they could throw or gadgets they could push buttons on. If you take away Solomon Grundy's ability to punch, he's as useless as a first base coach. The only thing he could do during a fight is something we called the "Grab Attack" as kids. It was a complicated move where he grabbed the other guy until they pulled free or shoved him off. Sometimes they waited until he carried them around a little bit. You might have inadvertently used this same move on your kitten or a bag of groceries.
  • The Riddler fell into this a fair bit, by the nature of the series. Normally, in the comics, his modus operandi is to create a clever scheme that incorporates riddles as either a theme or a handicap. But in this series, he was on a team with about a dozen other evil geniuses, many of whom seemed to be smarter than him or could invent stuff he generally didn't. Consequently, most of the time, his only "contribution" to the villain plots seemed to be calling up the Superfriends and giving them clues on how to win. One wonders why they kept him around.
  • Darkseid never physically fights, and he becomes exhausted whenever he uses his Omega Beam. Despite it keeping its Homing Lasers aspect, the Omega Beam misses several times, and it gets toned down to an Agony Beam instead of a Disintegrator Ray when it is used on a living being. The first time Superman is hit by it, he is able to resist it with some struggle. The second time, he straight up No Sells it. Not to mention this Darkseid is extremely hampered by his rather pathetic Villainous Crush on Wonder Woman which repeatedly bites him in the stony ass.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • In the comics, Blackfire is stronger than Starfire and has more powerful energy blasts. In the show, they are roughly equal. In "Betrothed", Blackfire acquires a magic gem that ramps her powers up to her comic counterpart, but Starfire is able to destroy it and beat her.
  • Downplayed with Beast Boy. In the comics, Beast Boy's powers means that he has Ideal Illness Immunity. He isn't this way in the cartoon and even has a Sick Episode.
• All of the Titans from Teen Titans Go! got hit with this. The Titans of this cartoon all squabble amongst each other, throw immature tangents whenever they don't get their way, get captured in most of their shorts, somehow manage to accidentally kill themselves once, break under pressure easily, and can get held back by being tied up with ordinary rope (even the superpowered ones). They also take on a few darker traits as well. Naturally, as a Quirky Work, all of this is regularly lampshaded, with a crossover episode with The Powerpuff Girls even referring to the world of this series as "A universe where heroes don't care about defeating villains."
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012):
    • The Purple Dragons are usually a large, city-wide gang that menaces New York in most adaptations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the 2012 series, they're just three guys that cause trouble in their neighborhood and commit minor crimes.
    • The turtles themselves suffer from this hard in the 2012 series. While they are still skilled ninja, they're more prone to losing fights, pulling a Badass in Distress, constantly receiving a lot of humiliating beatings, and/or being forced to retreat during battles compared to most versions. It also doesn't help that in the rare moment any one of them or the group as a whole manages to win an impressive victory, none of them seem to retain their experience or newfound skills in future battles and continue to remain inept when fighting a new Monster of the Week or even one of their old foes like the Shredder, Xever, Bradford, or Tiger Claw, whom the Turtles should be able to solidly defeat after multiple seasons worth of battles but yet... still have trouble against them even by the time of the final season. To put it into perspective, the only enemies who don't subject them to at least one Curb-Stomp Battle across the entire series...are the aforementioned Purple Dragons. Also, the only Shredder that the 2012 turtles can fight without being put in life-threatening danger is the 1987 Shredder, whom Leo and his 1987 counterpart can easily knock out together in "The Big Blowout".
    • The 1987 Turtles. Their ninjutsu skills are almost non-existent in this version, relying on wacky hijinks and snappy remarks to get by. Not only that, but they seem completely reluctant to use their weapons on their enemies for fear of seriously hurting them. While this seems to work when in their home dimension, they come across as complete jokes when teamed up with their 2012 counterparts or when facing 2012-Dimensional enemies like Bebop and Rocksteady.
    • 1987 Shredder, while in the original series he was a fierce ninja that could fight the turtles 4-on-1 (the Turtles in-turn skilled fighters themselves), here he is only ever seen fighting twice; the first time getting his ass handed to him by the 2012-Bebop and Rocksteady as a test of their skills, and when the 1987 and 2012 break free, Shredder under a toppled Krang before he could fight. When Karai challenges him to a fight, he has his Foot Bots attack for him, admitting under his breath that she intimidates him.
  • Downplayed in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. While not wimps exactly, the turtles are shown to be less skilled than in most incarnations, largely due to Splinter not training them as much (partly out of laziness, partly due to not wanting to burden his sons with the Hamato Clan destiny) but also their lack of experience. It doesn't help that Raph, Leo, and Mikey start off needing to get accustomed to mystic powers from their new Magical Weapons. That said, they still score some impressive wins even early on, put up good fights even when they do get beaten, and once they master their mystic powers and Splinter starts training them seriously...well, see Adaptational Badass.
• When Vincent Van Ghoul debuted in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo, he was a powerful sorcerer. In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, he's just a famous horror movie actor who's been having trouble finding good roles.
• Done with a few of the engines in Thomas & Friends. Toby in particular was a Cool Old Guy in The Railway Series novels and, though his weaker build was pointed out at times, he still proved one of the most efficient and intelligent engines on the railway. In later episodes of the TV series, Toby is a Lovable Coward and almost as buffoonish as the younger engines he mentored (to the point Swapped Roles where Thomas and Percy have to set him straight are common). While he is still shown at times to be good at his job, he needs heavy direction first.
  • The same can be said about Henry. While he is portrayed as a neurotic in The Railway Series, the later episodes of the series turn his neuroses up. He is much meeker than he ever is in the books, and rarely gets a chance to show his mettle as a heavy goods and express engine.
• The Transformers has Shockwave. In his bio and in the somewhat earlier Marvel comics, he was characterized as a highly competent, intelligent, and powerful Wild Card Straw Vulcan who in his first story arc took over the Decepticons because he felt he could do a better job at it (and was largely right). In the cartoon, he's a Yes-Man who spends most of the series hanging out on Cybertron as a guard, he never demonstrates any real agency aside from following Megatron's orders, and his main power seems to be simply shooting at people with his gun arm or cannon mode and rarely ever hitting them. His most memorable scene was probably when Bruticus picked him up and shot him at his own troops.
• The main five heroines of W.I.T.C.H. were hit with the nerf bat hard in the first season. In the comics, the five had control of one of five elements, shapeshifting, invisibility and other abilities and could use them transformed or not. Here, poor Will has no elemental powers and the other four could only use their elements at extremely weak levels untransformed. They also lost all their extra abilities, but gained the power of flight (in the comics, only Hay Lin could fly until the "New Power" arc). In the second season, Will finally gained her powers and everyone had their elemental usage upped once the Veil of Meridian went down. They also gained their extra powers, but only one power per character.
• X-Men:
  • Magneto in innumerable adaptations, most visibly X-Men: The Animated Series and X-Men: Evolution, is never as powerful as his comic counterpart, usually restricted to hurling around girders. (Ironic, since he rarely gets into any direct confrontation with the X-Men outside the comics.) The most epic case, however, is surely his guest-starring episode ("The Menace of Magneto") in the 1978 Fantastic Four animated series, where he's beaten Mr Fantastic armed with a wooden gun and subsequently taken away by regular police.
  • Jean Grey, who wields the power of the Phoenix for a few episodes but is otherwise far weaker than she is in the comics. Fans have noted how useless she is always needing Rogue or others to pull her out of trouble, and at one point Jean was beaten by a freaking extension cord.
  • Silver Samurai lacks his tachyon field abilities in X-Men: The Animated Series, instead relying on trickery and a teleportation device. When Wolverine destroys Samurai's teleportation harness, he's left completely helpless, and pathetically slinks off while Wolverine tells everyone he'll never be a threat again.
  • Mystique, in the first season of X-Men: Evolution, is simply pathetic, belittled by Magneto frequently and chronically knocked out by her enemies (barely even lasting a minute in any fight). The only way she succeeded in doing anything was by being a Manipulative Bastard. In one episode in Season 3 she existed only so that Rogue could absorb her shapeshifting abilities to sneak into the Acolytes' hideout.
  • Wolverine and the X-Men (2009) does this to several characters who, in their portrayal in comics and most adaptations, would not allow Wolverine to steal the spotlight as completely as he does in this series.
    • Storm becomes more timid and prone to getting a Tap on the Head to keep her from easily winning fights.
    • Cyclops is generally portrayed as considerably less competent in this series and loses all of his leadership quality from the comics and most adaptations as a result of his overall personality in the show being a caricature of his comic self's whiniest and most ineffectual moments.
    • In one episode, the entire team except for Wolverine is taken down in seconds by Silver Samurai and some ninjas. They do get a few moments of being the X-Men you know and love, but they're sadly few and far between.
• During the past segments of Xiaolin Showdown, we are told that Dashi engage in a titanic showdown with the Heylin witch Wuya, whom Dashi considers her as the greatest foe that he has ever fought. But when we see true version of the battle in the final episode, it simply consists of Dashi, Guan, and Chase Young treating her as just another foe for them to battle by simply stomping through her entire golems without any mention of the epic battle and Dashi simply seals her in the puzzle box without breaking a sweat.
• Most of the cast of Young Justice (2010), which according to Word of God was an intentional effort to make the massive superhuman cast manageable. For instance, Superboy lost his Telekinesis, flight, ice breath^note To be fair, so did Superman, Word of God confirms Kryptonians don't have this ability here, and Eye Beams^note A few late Season 1 episodes would see him briefly use patches provided by Lex Luthor to get the flight and heat vision, but he used these up near the end of the season, while Miss Martian lost her super-strength. And even without it, Miss Martian still managed to be one of the most scarily-powerful characters in the entire series. A particularly nasty one, though, is Wally. He went from becoming the fastest of all the Flashes and having thoroughly Surpassed the Teacher, to being the slowest of all the Flashes and eventually retiring (then coming Back for the Dead) because he Can't Catch Up to Barry and Bart.

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